One of the Rarest Sightings in Space! You Have to Check Out This Amazing Picture

Photographer unexpectedly captures this rare sighting

Transcript

00:00Stargazers in Missouri were pleasantly surprised when a fireball meteor that

00:07zoomed through Earth's atmosphere left a vivid multicolored tail in the night

00:10sky, something the naked human eye usually cannot see. According to NASA,

00:14this quadrantids meteor was likely cast off by the asteroid 2003 EH1. Although

00:20meteors travel at extremely fast speeds, ranging from 25,000 miles per hour to

00:25160,000 miles per hour, making them visible only for a few seconds, this

00:29meteor colored the sky with a green, red, and blue tail visible to the naked eye

00:33for a few minutes after it had passed. As a meteor disintegrates, it releases

00:37ionized elements that cast vibrant colors in the sky. Nickel creates a

00:41glowing green, calcium radiates violet, and blue-green originates from magnesium.

00:45The color red is produced from the energized oxygen and nitrogen molecules

00:49in Earth's atmosphere. Astrophotographer Frank Casage, who captured the rare

00:53light display, won NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day Award. On that

00:56particular night, he was out with his friends shooting galaxies. His capture

01:00was a happy accident. When shooting images of galaxies, Casage normally zooms

01:04in as much as possible. That night, however, he forgot to zoom in.

01:07I didn't even realize I had captured it on camera until I was checking back

01:10through the pictures afterwards, and there it was. Casage said, if I had

01:14remembered to zoom in, I would not have captured the meteor, he added. Shooting

01:17stars are always a thrill to see, even more so when accompanied by a rainbow

01:21tail.